Tomorrow (Wednesday 8th Sept.) sees The Beano reach its milestone issue No.3500, the first British weekly comic to ever reach that impressive number. Although its companion comic The Dandy was launched in 1937, seven months before The Beano, it's now lagging behind numerically due to it going fortnightly in 2007 when it changed its name to Dandy Xtreme.
The only other UK comic to have published more than 3,500 issues is the digest war title Commando, which launched in 1961 and releases eight issues a month. An impressive feat in itself, but The Beano is the only weekly to have achieved that record. It's taken 71 years to reach issue 3500, including a few years during and after World War 2 when it was published fortnightly due to paper shortages.
The celebrations in the comic are fairly low-key, with just an announcement on the cover and a page inside showing the stylistic changes to Dennis the Menace since he made his debut in 1951. (Perhaps by coincidence rather than design, this week also saw the launch of the new Dennis and Gnasher cartoon series on CBBC, - every weekday at 3.45pm.)
All the regulars are set to appear in tomorrow's landmark issue, including The Bash Street Kids, The Numskulls, Ratz, and my strip Super School (sneak peek below of a panel prior it being coloured by The Beano staff).
The Beano No.3500; 32 full colour pages for £1.25. Available from newsagents and supermarkets all over the UK.
The redesigned, improved Beano website can be found here:
http://www.beanotown.com/index.php
A news item about Dennis and The Beano has appeared on BBC Scotland. See here to view the video:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8243807.stm
7 comments:
Lew, thanks very much
for alerting us to this 3500th edition of the Beano. I would definitely have missed this one otherwise. Thanks also for the news that the Guardian will be reprinting a selection of British comics. Again, I would have missed these too.
Dave Whitwell
You're welcome Dave. I'm surprised that more blogs haven't mentioned the free comics. No doubt if they'd been giving away 2000AD or American comics the internet would be all over it. Same goes for The Beano's record-breaking issue.
Congratulations to the 3500 mark of Beano. A record breaking effort spanning seven decades is no easy task.
Wish them many more success, and thanks for linking us up on the news, Lew.
Great to see this, long live the Beano! In terms of 'improved' web official Beano site, is that your words or theirs? I'm still not keen.
New Zealand current events programme Campbell Live did a piece last night on Robert Fair, the inspiration for Dennis the Menace, now living in Hawkes Bay.
Unfortunately their researchers made nonsense of the interview by using clips of the American Dennis. See clip below:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Default.aspx?TabId=367&articleID=124263&cat=84&ce8273=1#comment
I thought you were in the beano when I buy it there was no super school
Hi Antony, The Beano tend to change their contents around so not all the same stories are in every week. They have some Super School strips from months ago still unused so hopefully they'll appear soon.
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